Chapter Text
Geralt has a lot of time to think as he passes the winter in Kaer Morhen. He finds himself alone there this year, which is probably what he deserves.
What he’d said to Jaskier on that mountain hadn’t been fair, but it hadn’t been entirely inaccurate.
It was Jaskier’s fault that Geralt had gone to the banquet. And it was Jaskier’s fault Geralt was even searching for that fucking djinn in the first place.
Jaskier had not shown interest in repeating their tryst from the day of the banquet, which Geralt never begrudged him. Women are Jaskier’s preference, and as they’re usually Geralt’s as well, he couldn't fault him. It should have even been a relief, given Jaskier’s tendency to fall in love with anything that moves and resembles a human.
So it had come as an unbearable surprise when he found himself longing for the bard’s presence. When long stretches of time passed between their meetings, he found it hard to sleep.
If it hadn’t been for Jaskier, he would have been able to sleep. If he’d been able to sleep he never would have gone looking for the djinn. If Jaskier hadn’t then decided to show up, Geralt’s wish wouldn’t have gone horribly awry, and Geralt never would have met Yennefer.
His mark may never have appeared.
Yennefer is the thunderstorm which breaks the oppressive summer heat, and Jaskier is the sun that breaks through the clouds, and neither should be cursed to suffer Geralt though he can’t seem to stay away from either of them.
He dreams of one and then the other, but it’s Jaskier’s face that burns itself behind his eyelids, the one he wakes with each morning.
He hadn’t known for a long while if the mark had belonged to Yennefer or Jaskier, but he’d chosen to believe it was for Yen. Now, though, he can no longer hide from what he’s known to be true all along.
Geralt had made his way down the mountain alone, wishing for Roach’s company. The heel of his foot throbbed with phantom pain. The healers in Novigrad had told him about this phenomenon once when he’d watched a man crying out in pain, pointing to the air where his missing arm should have been.
Ahead of him, the sunset was a violent battle against the night, the sky aflame as though the sun was holding on for dear life. Geralt tried not to think of what Jaskier had asked of him, looking sharply down at the ground as though the sun could hurt his inhuman eyes.
Losing Yennefer and Jaskier all at once was painful, but the outcome was better in the long run. Like setting a bone or amputating a poisoned limb before the toxin could spread.
The truth struck him with such awful clarity then. He knew it in the same way he knew the sun would lose its battle tonight and rise again tomorrow, that Jaskier was the one the mark had appeared for.
The realization has been slowly bubbling to the surface of his brain, a downer rising and rising to the top of a lake before it makes a fatal strike. He’d turned his head to the side while he was inside of Yennefer only to see Jaskier through the window-- alive , healed, full of happy relief--and that awful, tender part of Geralt's heart, the one he keeps under lock and key, the one that belongs only to Jaskier, had leapt in surprised, unguarded joy.
From the pain that had filled Jaskier’s eyes on the mountain, the way the mark on Geralt's foot had screamed , Geralt suspects that Jaskier had already known the truth. Geralt had been foolish or willfully ignorant enough to convince himself that if Jaskier had the same mark, there was no chance he’d be able to keep that fact to himself.
Hadn’t Jaskier once asked if witchers could have soulmarks? Geralt wasn't sure of the answer at the time and dismissed the question as just another in Jaskier’s never-ending stream of them. Now he saw it in a new light.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, twigs and the dry ground of the mountain crunching under his boots, and then louder he shouted, “Fuck!”
Winter is giving way to spring, the white myrtle flowers budding along the pathways made visible once again as the snow begins to melt. He has to ride slowly in places or sometimes walk, careful that Roach doesn’t slip on the icy patches that form after particularly cold nights.
Geralt rides for weeks after he leaves Kaer Morhen, making his way south in the direction of Novigrad, following the smooth curves of the Pontar. He cuts through towns and cities, gathering information about Jaskier’s whereabouts.
He doesn’t know what of his heart is true or what is from wishes or marks, but he knows he must find Jaskier. If he sets things right between them, then at least maybe he'll find peace. He owes his friend that much, an amicable parting of ways. And more than that, an honest one.
At night when the wind whistles around him and his eyes are closed, he’s dragged back to that mountaintop.
Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow?
We could head to the coast.
He hadn’t been able to look at Jaskier, like the sight of him might have turned him to stone. But in his memories, Geralt pictures Jaskier’s face as he spoke, face open and vulnerable, the terrifying blue of his eyes. So ridiculous and sincere in his red leather doublet that looked like dragon scales.
He’s so fucking young, Geralt had thought, staring out across the horizon long after Jaskier had stood and left. Yennefer, he’d believed, could protect herself from him. Jaskier, he might destroy. Let it be Yen, he’d prayed, and spare Jaskier from a fate intertwined with his.
Now he knows it’s better he spare them both. This life is not for Yen or Jaskier or his Child Surprise.
He picks up a few contracts as he continues his route, and he catches a few rumors about Jaskier, namely that he’s been thrown in jail just east of Novigrad.
Briefly, Geralt considers riding straight back to Kaer Morhen, but if this is to be his last gesture of goodwill, it may as well be a worthwhile one.
You wanted to show me what I was missing? There she goes.
He had wanted so badly for Yennefer to be the answer. For all the fire between them, there was a simplicity. A witcher and a sorceress. Her expectations of him would always be tempered. Their relationship, whatever its form, was already shrouded in a thick blanket of darkness that Geralt was comfortable navigating. With Jaskier, there would be nowhere to hide.
What you’re missing is still out there. Your legacy. Your destiny. I know it. And you know it.
Jaskier. The Child Surprise. He knows it, though he doesn’t want to. Still doesn’t fully believe that this is true. It’s one thing for your head to know, and another for your heart.
The last of his coin goes to paying off Jaskier’s accumulated gambling debts. Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose in familiar frustration but with a touch of new guilt. When Jaskier is hurting, his pockets tend to hurt the most.
“You couldn’t keep yourself out of trouble for five fucking minutes,” Geralt says when he sees Jaskier slumped over in his cell. Dressed in his dirt-caked green doublet, he stands out among the rest of the small prison population.
His eyes go wide when he sees Geralt, full of hope and anger. The sour twang of nervous sweat reaches Geralt's nose. Though emotions like fear are blunted for Geralt, or so he’s been led to believe, he feels a matching nervous twist in his own stomach when he and Jaskier lock eyes. But there’s some relief too, like the first sip from a waterskin after a long fight.
Geralt hands over the stamped notice from the debtors and watches as Jaskier is let out of the dusty cell and given back his belongings.
“Don’t have any money left for a room here,” Geralt says to him as they step outside into the late afternoon sun. “I’m going to set up camp along the river.”
“Is that an invitation?”
Geralt nods once, and Jaskier follows him with a sigh, that same apprehensive smell drifting off of him.
They bathe in the river and set up camp almost entirely in silence. Geralt has no idea how to have the impending conversation even though he’d set out here to have it. He doesn’t know how to talk about anything else either, and it’s usually Jaskier who does that work. Jaskier had commented on the surprising warmth of the day and then clamped his mouth shut as if catching himself revealing something more precious than weather commentary.
Geralt would jump on his sword before he admitted he missed Jaskier’s chatter, the way he’d try out new lyrics or absentmindedly recite poetry.
After the fire’s been kindled, Jaskier stares at Geralt and Geralt stares back as they stand by the bright flames. There’s a grim set to his mouth as if he’s resigned himself to something.
Dread fills Geralt. The same kind he feels when he’s underprepared for a fight. But he knows that no matter what, Jaskier has been a friend. He owes him more. Their goodbye should be better than the one Geralt had given.
Geralt tries. He forces the words out. “Jaskier, I’m sorry.”
It’s unclear if the words register. Jaskier’s expression doesn’t change; his mouth stays in that grim line for a few moments. “Why’d you come for me?” Jaskier asks finally. “You could have rode straight through town without paying off my debts.”
“Would you have preferred I leave you there?”
“Don’t be obtuse, you know very well that’s not what I’m saying.” Jaskier runs a hand through his hair, brushing it off of his forehead. “I’ve missed you.” He says it like it’s a confession, a secret Geralt hasn’t already guessed at.
Tiny specks of ash float in the air around the fire, the light from the flames flickering across Jaskier’s weary face. Geralt hates that he’s made Jaskier look this way.
“It wasn’t you who I was angry with,” Geralt says before Jaskier can speak again. “I owe you an apology for what I said to you.”
For a long, unsettling time, Jaskier is silent. “Aren’t you as tired as me of all this faffing about? I know your mark appeared, Geralt,” he says finally. “Yennefer told me.”
Geralt draws back. “When did you talk to Yennefer?”
“I ran into her about a month ago. But that’s not the point,” he says, exasperated. “I know your mark appeared and when it happened.”
“Wasn't sure who it belonged to,” Geralt says. He isn’t quite sure why he’s saying it as if it matters.
“Spiral on the heel of your left foot? Well, surprise. It’s me. I've got the matching one. I’m not really sure how one manages for his soulmark to appear when he’s fucking someone else--which I’ll admit I thoroughly enjoyed seeing at the time, but that’s not the point either. The point is, you looked up, and you saw me in that window, and I still can’t get my head round why it appeared for you then or why you never asked me if I had one too.”
“You never mentioned yours either,” Geralt says sharply. “I didn’t know you were capable of staying quiet about something.”
“I didn’t think you’d exactly be welcoming of the information.”
“Probably not,” Geralt concedes.
“You would have turned and walked away from me if I’d told you. Same way you did with your Child Surprise. Same way you turned on me on the mountain. There’s a reason the things didn’t appear on our bloody faces.”
“Jaskier--”
“You didn’t want it to be me, did you?”
“No.”
Jaskier doesn’t seem at all surprised by his answer. “Why?” he ask immediately as if he’d been waiting to pounce. “This is the part I’ve been dying to understand.”
“Because we shouldn’t be together,” Geralt says, Jaskier’s tone irritating him.
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yes.”
Jaskier turns and walks a half-circle, stopping to face Geralt again. “You know what I think? I think you’re full of more shit than a chamber pot,” Jaskier half-shouts, half-laughs, then pauses. “Wait, was that clever? Should I write this down?”
Geralt’s narrows his eyes.
“No. Doesn’t matter. The point is you’re full of shit. You never get involved, except you get involved every time. You don’t want anyone to need you and yet you want everybody to need you. You want to outrun your destiny and yet you claim the Law of Surprise knowing the risks, you make a wish to tie your fate to Yennefer’s, you let me--” he cuts himself off.
“Let you what?”
“Let me stay by your side over and over despite all of your protests.” The look Jaskier gives him is torturous like he can see straight through him down to sinew and bone and soul. “Yeah, you say you didn’t want it to be me, but it is and here you are standing before me today.”
Jaskier is relentless, and Geralt is powerless to stop him. It’s like Geralt has grown roots into the ground. He can’t walk away, can’t speak. Just because you have a heart doesn’t mean you want to--or know how to--talk about what lives inside of it.
He wishes it was true, that he was heartless, that his emotions were flattened, barren pieces of land. Fear and anger knotted with desire aren’t things he wants to feel, and he can feel and smell those emotions radiating off of Jaskier and seeping through Geralt’s skin. Whatever Jaskier is about to say next he can’t bear it and he can’t prevent it.
“Geralt, you have to know how I feel about you. Even a head as thick as yours has to know that.”
“Doesn’t matter how you feel about me, Jaskier. You would be better off forgetting about the damned mark.” Geralt hurls the words out, frustration dripping from every syllable. He never should have come after Jaskier and made things a hundred times worse. “After this, we go our separate ways again. I’m done with letting you stay by my side. I’m done with all of this. I want my life to go back to the way it was before you, before Yennefer, the Child Surprise, all of it.”
“No.” Jaskier shakes his head and takes a step forward towards Geralt. “I don’t think that’s what you actually want at all.”
“It is .”
“I think maybe you do want to be with me,” Jaskier says plainly, taking another bold step forward. “I kept telling myself that I was mad for even entertaining the possibility, but I’m not. You wouldn’t be so angry with me right now or on that mountain, if it didn’t infuriate you, bloody terrify you, that you might actually want this.”
“I mean it, Jaskier. Stop, ” he all but growls, taking his own step forward.
They’re toe to toe now. There’s a challenge in Jaskier’s eyes that Geralt has never seen before. Usually, he’s gentler than this when he speaks the truths Geralt doesn’t want to hear.
They started this conversation at the outer edge of the spiral, and now he can feel them closing in, trapped in the shape of it, as they move inevitably towards the center of it all.
Geralt won’t be the one to look away first. Can’t Jaskier see how terrible Geralt is for him? Jaskier’s eyes are infuriatingly blue, and they won’t look the fuck away, and Geralt wants to punch him and kiss him all at once. “I don’t want--” and he can’t finish the sentence. Lies lodge in his chest, making it difficult to breathe. “I’m terrible for you,” he finishes.
“Gods, you really believe that, don’t you?” Jaskier’s voice is gentler now. “How can you say that? I don’t think I’d be better off without you at all. I love you exactly as you are and I always have.” Jaskier puts both hands on either side of Geralt’s face, and he can’t bear it, to be looked at like this. He kisses Jaskier so he can’t say another fucking word, so Geralt doesn’t have to look into those eyes anymore.
The kiss is frantic, feverish. A mess of tongue and teeth and his hands buried in Jaskier’s hair, pulling him closer and closer even though he wants to push him away. This flies in the face of every instinct he has.
He drags Jaskier down to the ground with him. They roll together on the grass, kissing like it’s a fight neither is willing to lose. Geralt tears at Jaskier’s clothes, needing to feel his skin under his hands, never feeling like he’ll be able to get close enough to him.
It’s not until he has Jaskier naked and trembling beneath him as Geralt works him open with his tongue, tracing his thumb along the mark on Jaskier’s foot, that he realizes how desperately he’s been waiting for this to happen again. And now with the mark burning at his heel, it’s taking every ounce of strength not to plunge into Jaskier and fuck him mercilessly into the ground. The taste of Jaskier and the moans and obscenities he’s crying out to the dark sky are driving Geralt mad.
“Don’t hold back,” Jaskier pleads, gazing up at him with sex-drunk eyes. His lips are bitten red, and Geralt kisses them and bites them redder as he pushes inside of Jaskier. He fucks him like a man possessed, and Jaskier cries out every time Geralt hits his prostate, fingers clutching at Geralt’s ass to pull him in tighter. He kisses Jaskier, filthy and hot, fucking his tongue into his mouth as he moves.
“More,” Jaskier manages to beg between kisses. “Geralt, I need more.”
“ Fuck, ” Geralt chokes out, hating how much he needs this. He wants to press himself into every corner of Jaskier’s body; nothing feels close enough.
Jaskier’s only reply is to pull him down and crush their lips together again.
Geralt stays in deep, driving his hips in quick, hard pumps. Jaskier’s hands fall to his sides, clutching at the ground around him, legs splaying open. It’s more than Geralt can take. He’s at the cliff’s edge and he has no choice but to jump, and it’s been this way with Jaskier all along.
With a moan, he falls forward, burying his face in Jaskier’s neck as he comes, waves of pleasure overtaking him as he rides his orgasm out. He stays inside of Jaskier and wraps his hand loosely around Jaskier’s cock. It only takes a few quick jerks before Jaskier lets out a sharp, “ Fuck,” and blows his load into Geralt’s hand.
They disentangle slowly and stare at one another in helpless disbelief. Geralt doesn’t know where they go from here.
He wipes his hands on the grass. Both of their nails are filled with dirt, fingers stained with grass. Jaskier inspects his hands, rubs at his back, and lets out a shaky laugh. “Gods, can we ever fuck in a bed?” Jaskier says. Geralt snorts and heaves himself up, moving towards his pack.
“Oh, now you get the bedroll out,” Jaskier complains, but he stands, a bit unsteadily, and comes to lay down next to Geralt.
“Even if there was no mark, I’d still want you,” Jaskier says from behind him. “Love is built from more than magic.”
Geralt flinches. “You should want better things for yourself,” he tells Jaskier. The anger is gone and all he feels is tired.
“And you,” Jaskier replies.
He doesn’t protest when Jaskier slings an arm around him, chest pressed into his back. “I think I understand a bit more about your line of work now.”
Geralt can barely muster a groan, his eyelids drooping shut. Sleep save him from whatever nonsense Jaskier is about to utter.
“I feel like I’ve just fought and tamed a wild beast.” Jaskier’s hand splays wide over Geralt’s chest, just above his heart.
“I don’t tame them,” he reminds Jaskier, who makes a humming noise and strokes Geralt’s hip absentmindedly as though he’s playing a melody on his lute.
“Something tells me you won’t stay tamed anyway.”
Mercifully, sleep comes before Jaskier can say anything else.
The next morning he lets Jaskier take him slow and sweet. Lets their fingers intertwine above his head. Lets Jaskier fuck him with languid strokes. He feels a bit like a tamed beast after all.
Geralt doesn’t think he knows how to make love. It’s always wild and hard and rough, even with Yen--especially with Yen. But he lets Jaskier make love to him, lets himself feel precious and cherished. Thinks that maybe he can trade darkness for light.
Now more than ever he can understand why so many spread their legs for Jaskier, why he gets such trouble sleeping his way through the Continent. He hits the perfect spot inside of Geralt over and over until his orgasm builds inside of him and he can’t hold back any longer. Geralt doesn’t let many men do this, but he likes the way Jaskier feels, wouldn’t mind doing this again and again and again with him.
They wash up in the river together that morning. Geralt rubs lavender oil into Jaskier’s back and his hair and remembers their first night together. The memory turns him on more than he can stand, and he slicks Jaskier’s thighs and fucks between them while he strokes Jaskier’s cock.
After, he wraps his arms around Jaskier’s back, breath running ragged. “I don’t want to ruin you,” Geralt says, face pressed into Jaskier’s hair. He’s ashamed of the raw rasp of his voice. “Please, don’t let me.”
Jaskier’s hands come up to touch his. “You won’t. You can’t.”
Geralt breathes in the soft scent of the oil. “When did your mark appear?” he asks.
Jaskier stills and Geralt blows out a sigh. “Jaskier.”
“The first time we met,” Jaskier says in a rush.
“Fuck.” A mix of emotions flash through Geralt. Jaskier has known for so long , loved him all that time. Astonishing, beautiful moron. He kisses Jaskier’s neck and tightens his arms around Jaskier’s chest.
“It was fast even by my standards,” Jaskier says.
“You know, it is possible to have a conversation with someone without falling in love.”
“Who said we’d had a conversation when mine appeared?”
“You are a fucking idiot.”
“I thought it was rather romantic.”
“You have romance confused with stupidity.”
“I can live with that.” Jaskier chuckles and turns around in Geralt’s arms. “Come on, I’m cold and starving. Let’s go dry off and find something to eat.”
The smell of fresh spring flowers is strong, yellow blowballs blossoming along the bank. A gentle breeze laps against the side of Geralt’s face as he casts Igni and readies a fire for cooking.
“I think you should set things right with Yennefer,” Jaskier says as Geralt begins to roast the hare he caught for them that morning. “Unless you’re too afraid of her now.”
Geralt gives a short laugh. “You scare me more than Yennefer.”
Jaskier gapes at him. “I’m sorry, are we talking about the same Yennefer? Yennefer of Vengerberg?”
Geralt doesn’t deign to explain further, not entirely sure he could even if he wanted to. He rotates the meat slowly over the fire. “I’m not going to sleep with her again,” Geralt says offhandedly.
“But your fates are intertwined. You wished it so,” Jaskier reminds him.
“And they are, they will be. At least until we break that spell. Doesn’t mean I can’t control my cock.”
Jaskier considers this, looking up to the sky. “You can sleep with her. If you like. That’s not the kind of thing I’d really mind. Not if your heart’s mine. Oh, I think I might be able to work that into a song,” he adds to himself.
A thought strikes Geralt then, that flash of Jaskier’s face peering through the window in Rinde. There had been joy in his face when they locked eyes, and a primal part of Geralt had known that Jaskier loved him. Truly loved him despite all the reasons he should not.
Jaskier has loved Geralt exactly as he is right from the start. Has never asked him to be someone else. The love Jaskier has given him so freely is not a gift Geralt deserves, but one he intends to earn.
“Hm. Something tells me I’ll have my hands full with you.”
Jaskier makes a show of acting affronted, slamming his hands on his knees as he leans forward. “I’ll have you know, I’m phenomenally low-maintenance. I’m perfectly fine for us to continue the lives we’ve been leading, more or less. With more sex, though. Definitely more sex.” He gets a faraway look in his eyes.
“You were gone for a while,” Geralt says. The smell of fire and charred meat waft towards him as he watches the pink flesh begin to brown. “Before the djinn.” He doesn’t know how to tell Jaskier he doesn’t want that again, that he wants him to walk the Path with Geralt who’d never thought it might be wide enough for two. Even when he’d thought about a future with Yennefer, he’d still imagined them traveling separately around the Continent, careening together when it suited one or the other.
“I tried to stay away after Cintra.” A crease appears between Jaskier’s brows as he frowns. “You seemed to already have one destiny to outrun, I didn’t want to give you another to leave behind.”
Geralt closes his eyes briefly. “I think perhaps it’s time I stop with that nonsense.”
“Yes,” Jaskier says, ”I think perhaps so.”
Jaskier moves closer to him and tangles a hand in Geralt’s hair. They kiss for a long while after that, their lunch going cold.
They clear up camp, Jaskier still playing with various combinations of I don’t mind/if your heart is mine , singing it in different pitches as they work. Geralt smiles to himself only a little.
“Do you still want to head for the coast?” Geralt asks, hoisting himself atop Roach once they’re packed.
Jaskier put his hands on his hips and squinted up at Geralt. “You want to head to the coast?”
Geralt lifts a shoulder. “Decided that it might please me. It might take some time to get there seeing as I spent my last coin on an idiot’s gambling debts.”
A smile begins to creep across Jaskier’s face, and his eyes, caught in the morning sun, look very bright. “I’m sure that idiot could help earn back some of that coin now that his muse has returned to him. With a lute in his hand and all manner of song in his heart, there’s much coin to be earned."
"Hm." Geralt tries to hide his smile.
“Have you given any thought to where we might go after that?” Jaskier asks.
“Cintra,” Geralt says simply. He offers his hand out to Jaskier to pull him up.
“Cintra it is,” Jaskier says, taking Geralt’s hand.
A jolt runs through Geralt as his sword-calloused fingers meet Jaskier’s lute-calloused ones. He feels it from the top of his head, through his spine, and down to the heel of his foot. Jaskier holds him tight as they ride, and Geralt can feel the hope radiating off of Jaskier, and he raises his gates enough to allow some of it inside.